Unscramble Your Biases

As I noticed quotes from the Code Conference dominate my Twitter feed yesterday, I saw a few from the Jeff Bezos interview that made me say out loud “Jeff Bezos is amazing.” I love his use of the phrase “cultural norms” (it’s one of my favorite phrases) and I particularly thought his comments on Donald Trump and the Peter Thiel / Gawker situation were right on the money.

The interview prompted me to think about how biases affect my thinking. I’ve been struggling with the Peter Thiel / Gawker stuff and have asked a few friends closer to the situation and the people involved to give me their perspectives as I’ve tried to determine whether my biases are overwhelming my perspective on it. As a result, I haven’t discussed it publicly, and instead have thought harder about it at a meta-level, which is actually more interesting to me.

I don’t know Jeff Bezos and have never met him, so my strong positive reaction to the interview reinforced this notion around unscrambling my biases as part of better critical thinking. If we use Amazon as an example, my relationship with the company, and my corresponding experiences over the years, have created a set of biases that I map to my impression of Bezos. And, as you read though the list below of my experiences / viewpoints, you’ll quickly see how the biases can create a chaotic mind-mess.

Following are the quick thoughts that come to mind when I think about Amazon.

Love it as a customer

Frustrated with how they have handled relationships with companies I’m an investor in

Delighted with how they have handled relationships with companies I’m an investor in

Moments of misery with interactions around difficult things

Brilliance and clarity of thought from Bezos

Wasted money on Amazon products that sucked

Amazing delight with Amazon products that I use every day, including my Kindle

Sucky experience as an author

Distribution that otherwise wouldn’t exist for me as an author

Many friends at Amazon

Sympathy for the stupid way Colorado has dealt with them around affiliates and sales tax

I could probably come up with another 50 bullet points like this. Given that Bezos is the CEO and public face of Amazon, I map my view of the company to him. I know that is only one dimension of him – and his experience as a human – but it’s the one that I engage with.

Then I remember we are all human. Shit is hard. We make lots of mistakes. And, when I sit and listen to Bezos talk to Walt Mossberg, I have an entirely new level of amazement, appreciation, and intellectual affection for him, and – by association – Amazon.

I know that many different kinds of biases get in my way every day. I’ve learned the names for some of them, how they work, and how to overcome them through various work of mine over the year. But at the root of it, I realize that a continuous effort to unscramble them when confronted with something that has created dissonance in my brain is probably the most effective way to confront and resolve the biases.

For those of you in the world who tolerate me saying “what do you think of thing X” and then give me a thoughtful response, thank you, especially when you know I’m wrestling with trying to understand what I think about X. Now you know that part of what I’m asking you to help me with it to unscramble my biases around the particular person or situation that is represented by thing X.